I find the comments to the article amusing. The arguments against it sound like the typical ignorant lamentations of environmental tards.

Massive Coal Mining Project Near Bryce Canyon NP Approved
BLM gives go-ahead to 2,000-plus acre coal mine just outside famed Utah canyonlands.


BY JUSTIN HOUSMAN SEPTEMBER 05, 2018

Highway 89, the two-lane scenic highway running between Utah’s Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park could soon be filled with the rumbling of hundreds of double-trailer big rigs every day. Their payload? Coal.

Last Thursday the BLM gave the go-ahead to lease some 2,114 acres of federal land just outside of Bryce to Utah-centered Alton Coal Development for a massive coal mining operation. The lease would effectively double in size the Coal Hollow Mine near Alton, Utah, and perhaps triple the amount of coal production.

The BLM and Alton Coal think there could be nearly 31 million tons of coal deposits at the expansion site, the removal of which might provide as many as 240 to 480 jobs.

Environmental groups, however, have been highly critical of the proposal.

“A lot of the values of Bryce that include the night skies, air quality, visibility, the sounds and the sense of being in a special place where there are not huge numbers of coal trucks and industrialization nearby are very important,” Dave Nimkin, the National Parks Conservation Association’s southwest regional director said in a local news report.

The Natural Resources Defense Council is alarmed that lights from the mining operation would jeopardize Bryce Canyon’s famous ink-black nighttime skies, when thousands of stars can be seen.

The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance has expressed concern about the impact any coal mine expansion would have on an important Greater Sage Grouse population in the area of Alton.

More than 300 coal-bearing transport trucks would likely trundle down highway 89, mixing with thousands of tourist vehicles, according the National Park Service.

During the Obama administration, both the NPS and the US Fish and Wildlife Service considered the mine’s expansion, and expressed concern about potential negative impacts to visitors at Bryce Canyon. But under the current administration, the BLM was given the go-ahead to approve the lease, despite a reported 280,000 public comments critical of the planned expansion.

Before the expansion is carried out, state, local, and federal permits will still need to be attained by Alton Coal.

https://www.adventure-journal....-canyon-np-approved/

As one here in WV who has been around coal mining my entire life I sympathize with the locals. Hopefully it's all taken out by rail.
With gas so cheap and pipelines everywhere I'm surprised there's even much market for it out there?

Oh there's a huge market. I'd bet, though, that much of that market is overseas.

We have mile-long trainloads of coal coming through town several times a day lately heading west.

Probably headed to Seattle to get put on a boat.

I'm a big proponent of using our natural resources. If it's in the ground, dig it out. If it's on the ground, cut it down. We need jobs, we need lumber, we need minerals, we need coal. Get after it!

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
Oh there's a huge market. I'd bet, though, that much of that market is overseas.

We have mile-long trainloads of coal coming through town several times a day lately heading west.

Probably headed to Seattle to get put on a boat...

I suppose but it just seems short sighted to disrupt regions to export the limited resources we have which we will likely need in the near future.

We have enough recognized coal reserves in Montana and Wyoming to supply the country with electricity at current usage for 600 years. There is no energy crisis. It is just currently unfashionable to burn coal. Coal produces the cheapest electricity, everybody's bill goes up when we shut down power plants. The next big subsidy and transfer of wealth.

quote:

Originally posted by Outfitter33:
Coal produces the cheapest electricity,

My understanding is gas is now cheaper.

quote:

Originally posted by ridewv:

quote:

Originally posted by Outfitter33:
Coal produces the cheapest electricity,

My understanding is gas is now cheaper.

If it is, it is probably because of the heavy restrictions imposed by regulations.

flashguy

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
Oh there's a huge market. I'd bet, though, that much of that market is overseas.

Yup.
All the huffing and puffing the liberals were freaking-out when Trump was speaking to West Virginia not understanding that most of the coal dug-up here is set for export. With the acid rain emission regulations that industrialized countries are adhering to (looking at China and India) their coal reserves, along with Europes are not very clean and are on the low-end of the scale. Whereas the coal found in Wyoming and Utah is of the sub-bitomous variety, which is much cleaner and sought after.

Power for to make them solar panels and build them Teslas and Leafs gotta come from somewhere.

I'd rather see the coal burned here if scrubbers would allow for reasonable air quality.

Something about exporting non renewable energy doesn't seem smart. I'd like to see lower electric rates.

I know we have a lot of coal and all.

More POWER!!!

And good, overall. Glad the idiotic "war on coal" is over.

This is an expansion of the existing mine, it's been operating for several years. I remember the outcry from the beginning, the trucks would cause all the historical buildings in Panguitch, UT to collapse. I almost took a drive through Alton last weekend to see what it was like now, I'd been there before the mine. Here's a view of what it looks like now, before expansion. Can it get much worse?

quote:

The Natural Resources Defense Council is alarmed that lights from the mining operation would jeopardize Bryce Canyon’s famous ink-black nighttime skies, when thousands of stars can be seen.

Failure to develop domestic energy sources could give us plenty of opportunities for a dark night sky......

quote:

Originally posted by UTsig:
Can it get much worse?

I guess I'm not understanding what's bad about that picture.

It's one hill in a massive expanse of land. BFD. Should we not dig up and use the natural resources that we've been blessed with?

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:

quote:

Originally posted by UTsig:
Can it get much worse?

I guess I'm not understanding what's bad about that picture.

It's one hill in a massive expanse of land. BFD. Should we not dig up and use the natural resources that we've been blessed with?

Looks kinda cool actually.

How else should we heat and light our homes? Unicorn farts? I hear those cause global warming.

quote:

Originally posted by ridewv:
As one here in WV who has been around coal mining my entire life I sympathize with the locals. Hopefully it's all taken out by rail.
With gas so cheap and pipelines everywhere I'm surprised there's even much market for it out there?

Crude oil has been up around $70 for quite awhile now, of course, that’s not relevant in discussing coal vs. natural gas. Market analysts have expressed the idea that NG has “decoupled” from crude oil in market price and more closely follows coal. It’s been stuck at less than $3 for quite awhile.

Truth. I share concerns about the night sky being washed out by lighting at the coal operations. I’ve been blessed to have lived several places saturated with stars, with a prominent Milky Way. Although we live out of town, O&G operations and infrastructure contribute greatly to a significant loss of dark sky. Most of you are probably used to that. I’m not.

quote:

Originally posted by UTsig:
Can it get much worse?

It may look bad to you, but wait until they've finished and in a few years, you won't even know it was there.

quote:

Originally posted by flashguy:

quote:

Originally posted by ridewv:

quote:

Originally posted by Outfitter33:
Coal produces the cheapest electricity,

My understanding is gas is now cheaper.

If it is, it is probably because of the heavy restrictions imposed by regulations.

flashguy

Perhaps to an extent but in addition to gas being so plentiful and cheap now it has other advantages over coal. A gas plant is less complicated to maintain and less expensive to construct than a coal plant. Maybe the most efficient coal power plant in the country is just down the road here (Longview) I believe it's around 35% efficient, while a modern combined cycle gas plant is over 60%. Another advantage is when generating with gas it's a little easier to throttle back and ramp up as energy demand fluctuates, not so with coal. Coal is obviously dirty, while expensive scrubbers clean a lot from the flue gas much of what is removed ends up in the water. For these reasons as well as others no one is building coal fired power plants now because it's just too expensive a way to generate electricity.

quote:

Originally posted by ridewv:

quote:

Originally posted by flashguy:

quote:

Originally posted by ridewv:

quote:

Originally posted by Outfitter33:
Coal produces the cheapest electricity,

My understanding is gas is now cheaper.

If it is, it is probably because of the heavy restrictions imposed by regulations.

flashguy

Perhaps to an extent but in addition to gas being so plentiful and cheap now it has other advantages over coal. A gas plant is less complicated to maintain and less expensive to construct than a coal plant. Maybe the most efficient coal power plant in the country is just down the road here (Longview) I believe it's around 35% efficient, while a modern combined cycle gas plant is over 60%. Another advantage is when generating with gas it's a little easier to throttle back and ramp up as energy demand fluctuates, not so with coal. Coal is obviously dirty, while expensive scrubbers clean a lot from the flue gas much of what is removed ends up in the water. For these reasons as well as others no one is building coal fired power plants now because it's just too expensive a way to generate electricity.

Maybe it is more correct to say that coal "produced" the cheapest electricity. My point really was that there is no energy crisis. We can also produce diesel fuel through coal gasification. To make it economically viable oil prices would have to be at $150-$170/barrel. Remember, they were close a few years ago. They were contemplating building the first large scale coal gasification plant on the Crow Reservation here in Montana.

quote:

Originally posted by Outfitter33:
We have enough recognized coal reserves in Montana and Wyoming to supply the country with electricity at current usage for 600 years. There is no energy crisis. It is just currently unfashionable to burn coal. Coal produces the cheapest electricity, everybody's bill goes up when we shut down power plants. The next big subsidy and transfer of wealth.

Cheapest if you ignore the externalities. Which are not insignificant.